Two of Three Pilgrim Essays Updated

I have slightly revised two of my Pilgrim Essays, Starting from Cane Ridge and The Road to Canterbury. Nothing of substance has changed, but some slight revisions of language were necessary, as the entry into the Orthodox Church was only anticipated at the time of the last revision (summer 2004). I’m working to bring my [...]

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Starting from Cane Ridge VIII

[Note: These posts are available in a single html document here.] Leaving the Trail, Looking for Canterbury By autumn 1990, I began my final year at Ozark. I was a much different person than when I’d begun four years earlier, in 1986. Having been raised in the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement churches, in April of 1986 [...]

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Starting from Cane Ridge VII

A Change of Foundational Thinking So, from the fall of 1989 through the end of my schooling at Ozark, significant changes were occurring, changes which involved a major restructuring of my worldview as well as major changes in my theological understanding. These changes were mutually reinforcing of one another. A change in theology would entail [...]

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Starting from Cane Ridge VI

The Discovery of Liturgy and the Longing for the Historic Church I returned to campus in January 1990, intent on finishing my degree, but becoming more conflicted about my developing worldview understandings and the tenor of the intellectual climate at school. One of the classes I enrolled in was Professor J K Jones’ “Practical Ministry” [...]

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Starting from Cane Ridge V

An Individual Renaissance The academic year that began in August of 1989 did not give any obvious portents of what was to come. Earlier that summer my girlfriend and I had broken up and I ended the student youth ministry I had served for a couple of years. During the summer I had worked on [...]

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Starting from Cane Ridge IV

The First Years at Ozark Christian College My five years at Ozark Christian College are a period in my life to which I look back with nostalgia, thanksgiving and joy. There were struggles, to be sure. At one point, as will be explained, I considered leaving. But even knowing what I do now, I would [...]

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Starting from Cane Ridge III

Senior Year Decisions Through all these things a good solid foundation of faith had pretty much just been laid when the summer of 1985 came around. My parents, after several weeks’ separation, made another attempt to reunite. And they decided to try to get jobs back in our hometown area so that we could move [...]

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Starting from Cane Ridge II

Renewal of Faith I was born at the time of the split in the Disciples, so my upbringing in the Stone-Campbell churches reflected the difficult feelings resultant from the split. My understanding of the Church was staunchly anti-denominational, and, to a degree, anti-intellectual, both reactions to theological liberalism and to the denominationalism that forced out [...]

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Starting from Cane Ridge I

[Note: I have written of my journey to Antioch, still very much under way. But my account of my attraction to and movement toward Orthodoxy is only the last of a trilogy, which includes an account of my childhood and early adulthood in the Restoration Movement church (this present series), and an account of my [...]

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